Cady's Take:

On the other end, is a man who obviously can see everything Stu’s doing, and has a laser dot from a 30-30-sniper weapon pointed at Stu’s chest. Stu's crimes, in the sniper's books, are scheming to cheat on his wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell), and being a fake. The sniper's motive, why he would want to trap Stuart in a phone booth, is never made clear.

Just to prove he has a salient point, the mysterious assailant blows a small hole in an on-looker’s chest, and all hell breaks loose. Usually when there is a shooting spree, the most fascinating cover story is finding out what drove the killer to such extremes. It's the psyche of the killer that fascinates us. Sadly though, Phone Booth offers none of that.

Soon Kelly and Pam are at the scene. Forest Whitaker, who plays Capt. Ramey, attempts to talk Stuart out of the booth. After figuring out there is a sniper, by keenly noticing a red dot on Colin Farrell’s wife’s head, Whitaker orders her to get back into the car (She had never been in the car to begin with!). Five seconds later she’s standing outside the car door (which shouldn’t be able to open from the inside) screaming at her hubby to give himself up, and Whitaker thinks nothing of it. I could not believe how horrible Whitaker’s acting was in this film! I still have no idea why he and Holmes agreed to star in this movie.

One more point to prove how ridiculous the writing was in this movie- After being told, in “code”, that the police are on their way to take out the sniper (which I imagine was told to him so that he would make sure the sniper didn’t hang up and run), Stu starts screaming into the phone, “Ha-ha, you better run! Here come the police! Can you feel them? Can you feel them coming? They’re getting closer and they have really big guns. They’re on the stairs now, right below you, there is no escape, don’t even try to run!”- How stupid is this guy? How stupid is this movie?

Don't expect anything spectacular with "Phone Booth". The movie had more holes than swiss cheese and stunk nearly as badly. I was very bored with the static setting and I believe the only people who would actually appreciate this movie are girls age 12-16 because of Colin and males with an I.Q. below 60. It was unrealistic and unbelievable - Just because a movie is somewhat suspenseful doesn’t mean its good. Very repetitive and very boring, by far the worst acting ever!

All I can say is thank goodness “Phone Booth” was only 81 minutes long. If it were 82 or 83 minutes long I am not sure I would have survived to write this review. This is by FAR the worst movie I have seen since “Safe.” I am not sure where to start, this movie was so bad, but I think I will start with DO NOT RENT THIS MOVIE. “Phone Booth” tells the story (if you can call it that) of Stu Shepard, selfish PR guy, who calls his mistress (Katie Holmes) from a phone booth so his wife (Radha Mitchell) will not see the number on the bill. One day Stu gets a phone call at that phone booth, and a mysterious voice begins threatening Stu and the shooting begins.

First and foremost the acting is simply atrocious. This movie was shot in only ten days, and you can certainly tell. I hate to criticize the loveable Forest Whitaker, but his portrayal of Captain Ramey is unconvincing at best, laughable at worst. He babbles on about his broken marriage and therapy and I simply had no idea what he was talking about. Clearly Captain Ramey was too impatient to wait for the hostage negotiator so he just dove in with some anecdotes about his life and ex-wife. Um – HUH? The attempt to bond seems forced.

In addition, “Phone Booth” is not sure what it wants to be: is it a cop drama? Is it a psychological thriller? Is it a social commentary about our society? It only has a few elements of each, and certainly not enough to be any ONE much less ALL. It is a cop drama in the sense that there are COPS, and it is a psychological thriller in the sense that there is an Unseen Madman threatening the life of the Hot Young Movie Star Lead. It is a social commentary only because the unseen madman mentions he has selected Stu Shepard (Farrell) because of his “transgressions.”

I could go on and on about how much I disliked “Phone Booth” but I don’t want to waste any more of my time thinking about it. It was bad enough I had to sit through it.